Steve Christian: Special Report on Accounting

Steve Christian, Managing Director, Kreischer Miller

An accountant can serve many types of roles for CEOs, from hands-off keeper of the books to proactive, fully engaged adviser. It’s up to executives to decide how heavily they want to rely on their accountants. But in general, the more interaction they have, the fewer financial surprises they’ll run into.
“If you want to derive the most benefit, you have to work with your accountants year-round,” says Steve Christian, managing director at Kreischer Miller. “If you just want a scorekeeper who prepares a financial statement and a tax return and don’t want to include him in your team of advisers, you certainly don’t need to. But most progressively minded companies try to surround themselves with good advisers. And the way you become a good adviser is to intimately know the company you’re advising and spend as much time with them as you can, 365 days a year.”
Often, accountants can steer a company clear of pitfalls that might have adverse tax or financial consequences.
“Sometimes you enter into a transaction — you buy a company, you buy some equipment, you do something related to a transaction — and it will have some negative impact as to the financial statement or the tax returns,” Christian says. “Our value takes place by guiding you through the impact of transactions, as opposed to the value of preparing a return or preparing a financial statement. That’s why we really think you need to call us before you act rather than after you act.”
Advice on best practices in a client company’s market sector is another area in which accountants can provide value.
“CEOs know their companies intimately, but unless you belong to a peer group or something like that, you may not have many opportunities to see what best practices other companies are utilizing,” Christian says. “Meanwhile, your accounting firm may support 1,000 different clients out there. So while we may not have the answers to everything, we can tell our clients what we’re seeing is happening with other companies, and they can use that information take advantage of best practices.”
Steve Christian, managing director with Kreischer Miller, has a range of experience providing business advisory, audit, accounting and tax services to a variety of businesses, including privately held companies, partnerships, and SEC registrants.
HOW TO REACH: Kreischer Miller, www.kmco.com or (215) 441-4600